Gregory Carr has seen a lot in the 31 years since he led the first Doo Dah Parade through the
Short North, with several hundred disorganized but effervescent marchers in his wake.

He smiles in looking back on some of the more outrageous moments through the decades — an
elephant and its handler moving down High Street, for example — and delights in the quirkiness from
year to year.

“ Katie, bar the door — look out!” said the Bexley resident, 65, “because, from one year to the
next, you never know.” (The exception: the Marching Fidels, who return year after year.)

The changes, of course, are by design.

Yet the greater meaning in the parade, Carr said, is found beyond the street dancers, satirical
floats and wacky costumes: self-expression and freedom.

The event, after all, plays out on Independence Day.

“You can have principle and fun at the same time,” he said.

That was the original idea when Carr and some friends dreamed up the parade while sitting at the
Short North Tavern (he was a minority owner until 2007), lamenting the lack of a July Fourth
gathering in the Short North.

“We had sort of become the imaginative kingpin of the Fourth of July,” Carr said.

These days, Carr is little more than a “cheerleader,” as current “disorganizer” Deb Roberts —
also known at the tavern as Mz Doo Dah — put it. He long ago palmed off those duties to her, he
said, with the calls, meetings and planning having left him burned out by the early 1990s.

This year in particular, he is taking a back seat to Roberts and his boyhood friend Joe Theibert
while he battles

advanced throat cancer. The disease, a byproduct of 40 years of tobacco use, has caused him to
lose weight and develop a deep cough.

The illness, only recently diagnosed, has left him scared and apprehensive, he said. And,
although it has compelled him to take a leave from his job with the Columbus Public Service
Department, where he works as a management analyst, the health challenge hasn’t broken his
spirit.

“Outside of this, I’m a picture of health,” he said. “I enjoy living. I enjoy being a planner,
reading about cities, working in cities, doing something to improve the cities — so I’m not ready
to go yet.”

Carr, beginning four weeks of five-day-a-week radiation treatments, will be at the

Arthur G. James Cancer Hospita
l today during the parade — a notion that makes him wish that a Columbus TV
station would cover it live.

The stations, he said, are missing out.

Still, Carr will have more than enough eyes and ears at the parade on his behalf.

Theibert, in his final year as parade director, will lead the way; Roberts will direct the
droves of parade-goers in a raucous rendition of the national anthem.

Both will have their longtime friend — and his vision — in their thoughts.

“We’re still trying to keep the mind young and keep the imagination growing,” said Theibert, 65,
of Grandview Heights.

“Gregory’s good at that. He’s a visionary.”

Carr’s vision, in fact, is evident throughout the Short North. He founded the Neighborhood
Design Center, a nonprofit design agency; was a founding member of the Short North Business
Association; and has worked for the state and the city of Columbus as a planner.

He takes pride in the

progress made in the area since he began working there in the early 1980s — when the curbs were
crumbling, he said, and people took a risk in being out alone past dark.

John Allen, his former Short North Tavern business partner, said Carr has received little credit
for his contributions.

“A lot of things that he was part of laying the groundwork for, whether it’s the parade or the
design center or the neighborhood as a whole — the stuff he worked on is still around,” said Allen,
67, of Grandview.

The Doo Dah, Carr and his friends agree, has grown too big to fail, with about 30,000
enthusiasts expected in the area today. The number represents quite a leap from its humble
beginnings.

Proud of the parade he has helped to build, Carr vowed to return on July 4, 2015 — health
permitting — to enjoy the zany, free-forming procession once again.